A court sentenced Yang Min-jun, 47, to 25 years in prison Monday for killing an elderly upstairs neighbor over noise at an apartment complex in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province.
The First Criminal Division of the Daejeon District Court's Cheonan Branch, presided over by Judge Jo Yeong-jin, convicted Yang on charges of murder and property destruction and ordered him to wear an electronic monitoring anklet for 10 years upon release.
Yang was indicted for stabbing to death a 79-year-old resident, identified only as A, at a public rental apartment in Ssangyong-dong, Cheonan, at around 2:32 p.m. on Dec. 4 last year. When the wounded victim fled to the building's management office, Yang rammed his vehicle through the office entrance and attacked the man again. Investigators found that Yang had been unable to tolerate noise from sink renovation work in the victim's unit.
Yang argued the killing was impulsive, but the court rejected that claim. He had also argued he was in a state of diminished mental capacity, but withdrew that argument after a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation during earlier proceedings found no signs of mental illness.
The court said it was difficult to deny the premeditated nature of the crime, noting that Yang waited for a bystander outside the building to pass before ramming the management office door with his vehicle.
"The defendant brutally killed an elderly victim, making this an extremely grave offense — yet he has tried to shift blame onto the victim and claims he cannot remember what happened at the time of the killing, which raises serious doubts about whether he is genuinely remorseful," the court said in its ruling.
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